White Horses
by Rose G
Summary: Based on 'My Friend Flicka' Ken and Carey sit in the monlight and discuss their family, Rocket's and themselves.


White Horses

Rose G

Disclaimer - All settings, characters etc are the property of Mary O'Hara.

A/N - This is set about a year after the end of 'Greengrass of Wyoming,'

Ken turned, smiling, to his bride and repeated the priest's words. 'I do, Carey.' His voice cracked nervously, while Carey's was light and easy. 'I do as well, Ken.' Grinning foolishly now, Ken kissed his wife, threw his arms around her.

Later that night, they stood together on the edge of the Corral pasture, right on the boundaries of the ranch. Still, in Ken's mind the Goose Bar Ranch although Rob had removed the old sign stained with Rocket's blood and replaced it with a new one showing a rearing white stallion, courtesy of Thunderhead. The White Horse Ranch in honour of Thunderhead and in hope of his colts, but Ken knew he wouldn't remember the name.

'We're married, now, Carey. Really married.'

She ruffled his thick brown hair, laughing. 'I was in church earlier, Ken. And all down to your Thunderhead. Where is he now, anyway?'

Ken's face sobered. 'I let him go again - up in his valley. The Captain got sick of him jumping into the Six-Foot Pasture and disturbing old Banner.'

'How could you let him go, Ken? He won the Hunt Cup for you - Rob was relying on him to breed the mares, wasn't he?'

'I'm taking the mares up to him for that. He was born to be free, Carey. Born to gallop and fight. Can you understand that?'

She nodded, then looked out over the pasture. Jewel, head drooping miserably and sides distended, lumbered over the grass with a shadowy figure beside her - an Araby filly that they had found in the Albino's band. 'She'll have our child as well, Ken! Think of that.'

He laughed, affectionately. 'Oh, Carey, I do love you.'

'Well, Thunderhead is part of you, and Jewel is part of me, so the foal will be part of us both. And do you know what?'

'You've named the foal already?'

'Yes. Rob if it's a colt, for your father, and Gypsy if it's a filly?'

'Gypsy as in old black polo pony who eloped with Albino and came home with that hellcat Rocket?'

'She did start all of this, you know.'

Ken wrapped his hands around hers, thinking of how Gypsy's family had shaped his life. His childhood spent dreaming about the perfect savage beauty of Rocket and Albino; teenage years spent striving with Flicka to tame the wildness and then his entry into adulthood on the back of a plunging, bucking white stallion. Jewel's colt was another step along that path.

'Ken, why did you bring me out here tonight? We've got our own bunkhouse now.'

'I wanted to give you a present, sweetheart. I haven't got that much money - we spent all of Thunderhead's winnings on the ranch, so I brought back something I sold.' He raised two fingers to his lips and whistled.

Two horse shadows came cantering up the twilight field, past Jewel and Allamon. Ken scrambled down off the post and rail fence and run to Flicka, pressing her head against his checked shirt. Beside her, Touch 'n' Go stood, mature now, a deeper roan than her dam with finer legs and longer neck. A ladies horse. Ken caught her halter, pressed Carey's fingers around the soft rope.

'She's yours, Carey. Yours to keep and ride - or sell, if you'd rather have her price.' He kissed her face gently.

'Oh…Ken…She's everything you said…And I haven't got anything to give you.'

Ken, astride Flicka now, raised his left hand so that his wedding ring shone in the moonlight. 'You gave me this. What more do I want?'

She laughed then, vaulted easily onto her mare's bare back and wrapped her fingers into the creamy mane, touched her heels to her flanks. 'I'll race you to Castle Rock, Ken.'

The two mares stretched their red necks, drinking the wind as they galloped. Moonlight silvered Carey's hair, aged Ken's face and turned their horses into phantoms. Struggling to keep their seats, they let the mustang bred pair plunge up the rock until below them in the night was White Horse Ranch. And peering out towards he West, they saw their White Horse, the horse that had brought them together. Ken's Thunderhead. 

'Ken?'

'Yes love?'

'I really do love you, you know. You and Flicka and Thunderhead and everyone. White Horse Ranch.'

'I know, Carey.' He took her in his arms and kissed her. After a little while, the horses wandered away. 


End file.
